Choosing LTS vs Rolling Linux Desktop...in 2023

[@InfinitelyGalactic]

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[@xperience-evolution]

Agree on openSUSE Tumbleweed. One of the best rolling and stability combinations for sure. More Linux KZbinrs need to talk about openSUSE. Especially with the things that are changing right now with MicroOS and leap and the whole immutability

[@watynecc3309]

True Loving leap and tumbleweed

[@thering0010]

I used to like openSUSE back when they were using KDE 4 because it seemed more polished than most of the alternatives, but the things I've been hearing about their company have not impressed me, so I choose not to use it anymore.

[@emjaycee]

I like SUSE, but SUSE mirrors are way too slow for me in my location (Australia/FNQ) and always have been. I know you can change the mirrors manually but it's a bit painful, and it shouldn't be these days. SUSE is good otherwise.

[@rexhent2206]

@@emjaycee yeah in Australia as well and its to slow for me

[@jesse7631]

I agree; I am using both Arch and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and frankly TW doesn't really feel like a rolling release. It works more like Fedora for me.

[@Pieteros21]

For me something in the middle is perfect - I choosen fedora - kind of rolling release with kernel updates etc without changing OS version but still some things are stopped for full releases . It's much more up to date yet at least for me more stable than most ubuntu derivatives :D

[@gylkag]

Fedora you mentioned earlier in a video is actually a half-rolling distro. They don't roll some stuff like PM or toolchain updates but they have rolling kernel updates, which in theory gives more probability of a failure. The real opposite of a rolling release is Ubuntu, Debian, etc.

[@HeroRareheart]

I've stuck to the Debian family so far but I tried Fedora on my Mom's laptop, long story, and it went very well. It's so tempting to distro hop to Fedora.

[@proctoscopefilms]

@@HeroRareheart for sure, Fedora is so easy to use. If RPM Fusion was a toggle on install and the Extension Manager Flatpak was a stock app, it would be the first Linux distro for the masses, provided you're running an AMD GPU. Never had an issue with peripherals, never had to hack on any code, never had an update break anything.

[@marasion0862]

@@proctoscopefilms Yep, totally agree on that. Maybe an extra toggle for the flathub repo. As of now, they don't really explain what third party software is actually enabled when you tick the box in the welcome tour. I'd argue that RisiOS and Nobara both provide good/better explanations in their welcome tour than stock Fedora.

[@proctoscopefilms]

@@marasion0862 so true !

[@terminallyonline5296]

@@proctoscopefilms Yeah at least have RPMFusion Free on a toggle.

[@jawuku3885]

That's why I like Fedora Silverblue. Stable immutable base, with regularly updated GUI apps as Flatpaks, and any development environments can be safely used as distrobox containers.

[@MrYossarianuk]

You *need* to have at least semi rolling for desktops, not having that means the brand new laptop you buy may not work correctly (even sometimes boot) out the box, you may have broken sound, no wifi, terrible battery life, slower GPU (AMD), etc A case in point in my new work Dell XPX 9250 laptop I recently got for work, if I loaded Ubuntu 22.04 LTS I had no wifi and awful sound, installing PopOS (which has later kernel/mesa, etc) or an Arch based it works perfectly (really well with great battery life..) - Ubuntu 22.10 also works (as the fixes for sound came in kernel 5.18). Likewise if you have a desktop with a recent AMD GPU and you are not using a rolling/semi rolling distro you will have far worse performance in many games compared to running a system with later kernel/mesa.

[@Herminafried]

Fedora is a good middleway.

[@vaisakh_km]

my time is wasting on arch :) i just jumbed on to fedora i miss lightweight twm workflow and also kde,but now i got used to gnome, cuz best of fedora is it's gnome edition

[@morgenanspyrys]

@@vaisakh_km you can always install a TWM or KDE on top of Fedora-GNOME. However, Fedora also has (among others) official KDE and i3 versions, called "spins"

[@MarkHobbes]

Not good for newcomers, as I've said tons of time (some youtubers are probably being paid to be pushing people into Fedora). Fedora is a hassle to fully configure and make it usable. It makes it so hard for people to get full access to proprietary programs/apps, codecs, plugins, fonts, drivers. Good for developers or servers, not for the average Joe.

[@JTCPingas]

@@jatre5938 🤮

[@JTCPingas]

@@MarkHobbes Fedora is easy compared to Arch. rpmfusiondotorg/Configuration, graphical setup with Firefox and match your version, and finally sudo dnf groupupdate core multimedia sound-and-video in your terminal. How is that a hassle?

[@Anthropomorphic]

I think this is basically also why immutability seems to be garnering a lot of attention right now. If you don't need a rolling release to have the stuff you need, maybe you don't even need a mutable distro?

[@remigoldbach9608]

I have void Linux installed and it’s really stable for an rolling release. It’s also the distribution I kept the longest so far, as I’m happy with it. But you made really good points in your video !

[@javabeanz8549]

In 2006, I had enough repairing broken Windows. I moved to Linux and OS X exclusively. I had already switched from Fedora and CentOS, to Ubuntu, and over the next few years, I tried both the LTS and 6 month support versions, finally deciding that I would stick with the LTS releases for anything critical. Servers are always LTS, so that they have several years of updates before needing to be replaced. Desktop, I have mostly moved to Linux Mint now, though I have a couple older Ubuntu Mate systems still running. I do everything on Linux these days, other than I have an old Snow Leopard MacBook Unibody that I still download email off my IMAP accounts with occasionally. My gaming use is pretty low key, Old School RuneScape, Konquest, and some card and board games. I spend much of my time in CLI working with servers and coding, or in web administration panels ( Webmin and Plesk. ) I also use Libre Office Calc a lot for tracking projects, and working with data that I can import to to MySQL.

[@cssplayer91]

I'm installing linux on a computer I put together from spare parts I had laying around and I'm stuck between installing ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS and ubuntu 23.04 latest release. I'm going to be using the pc primarily for steam games. Should I install the LTS release or latest release? Which one do you think has better compatibility with gaming GPUs?

[@javabeanz8549]

@@cssplayer91 That would depend, are you running a GPU that was released in 2022 or 2023? Also, the LTS usually gets the HWE updated kernels, so the compatibility does improve in the LTS. The other question is, are you going to upgrade or reinstall in a few months? 22.04LTS should be well supported until 2027, where 23.04 will run out of support in the beginning of 2024.

[@xperience-evolution]

I think the Kernel (especially for Gaming and GPU heavy tasks) is a reason for a rolling release. Newest DE is the other although that is not a "need" but rather a "want".

[@coolbrotherf127]

I use Fedora with the Nobara project and it's been a great experience. It's been very stable and has all the features I need both for my development projects and gaming all with a stable and optimized experience.

[@amhainen]

My $0.02. I started using Ubuntu in 2006. After 10.04, I was ready for other options. I got tired of release-upgrades. I used to read quite a bit of caution about doing release-upgrades and that a fresh install was probably safer (whatever that meant/means). I switched to Arch in 2019 and have had great luck with it. I'm not a power user, just a tinkerer. Hope you have fun with whatever distro you use!

[@axonn101]

I switched to Fedora over a year ago and haven’t regretted it. I went from 35 to 36 and now 37 without issues. Sometimes I do need to configure GRUB again to boot to the latest kernel but whenever that stops I can easily boot the previous one. Though lately I have been more interested in containerized applications. I am considering a move to Vanilla OS. But Fedora has been working so well I kinda just don’t want to deal with the hassle.

[@justinhall3243]

I never used rolling releases over the 20 years I used Linux. However I am sick and tired of the upgrade cycle and so now use Tumbleweed

[@allardpruim9474]

I always use LTS versions of Ubuntu. The LTS versions of Ubuntu also supports so-called OEM kernels which you can install if you have brand new hardware. Furthermore I always use the software which comes preinstalled with Ubuntu such as Rhythmbox, LibreOffice.

[@svaira]

I agree that a stable system is generally better, but it really depends how often it's updated. I'm currently on Debian 11 and some of the packages are a bit too old for my liking, especially for development etc. Yes, I can update blender or gimp through flatpak, but not something like libsdl2-dev, and using GCC in a container is not really ideal if you want to do graphics testing. I think I will go for fedora in the future, since they're still a stable release but release more often than three years, I also considered the Ubuntu like systems but ultimately I don't want a mixture of multiple package sources, which was always kind of a pain with Ubuntu PPA vs. other PPA (Pop, elementary etc) vs Base Debian, and I do like flatpak quite a bit more than snaps. Although they also don't work for everything: I have to use zoom for Uni, and the flatpak just didn't work, only the native .deb (apparently it's more updated or so), and I also have to launch it from terminal for some reason because I have three icons for it under the application folders (apparently they just install every version into a new folder...). I mean yeah, it's zoom, it's to be expected, but if you have to use it for Uni or to talk to a therapist etc. you can't really rely on a old system+flatpak only.

[@genericgamer1319]

try Nix if you haveb't

[@AyaWetts]

Fedora is great. They do full releases every 6ish months, but they do a lot of updates in the mean time too, including kernel updates. Its like having a very stable environment that stays near cutting edge.

[@vaisakh_km]

Nix will change workflow fedora is the one i choose

[@wisnoskij]

The problem with discussing this is that, most of this is just meaningless titles that are chosen arbitrarily. Fedora gets a new kernel update every other day and 3 update pushes a day it seems. Every package has been changed 8 times over by the time they release a new "version" and we get package hours after the source drops and before Arch all the time. Just because we are stable and running `DNF update` will practically never break your system we call ourselves a "LTS release".

[@osascaino]

there are also interesting approaches such as Nobara Project's (a Fedora fork maintained by the maintainer of proton-ge) that use mostly Fedora's packages (which are a lot more upstream than, let's say, Debian's but not bleeding edge like Arch) but for packages like drivers, vulkan, mesa, the kernel, etc. they pull from a more bleeding edge repo, since Nobara has a gaming focus.

[@oscs4556]

These days, I prefer rolling distributions because I don’t want to deal the end of life cycle issues anymore. If I just want to use flatpaks, I would just use OpenSuse micro os or fedora kiniote.

[@ThePieas]

Thank you for covering linux. You are the reason I use linux today. Watching you since 2012

[@SushanthSomayaji]

My reason for going for a rolling release over a stable Ubuntu or Fedora was when I updated each of them from one version to another then my personal files were erased, my installed softwares absent and had to reapply all the settings to use my desktop. Each time with the procedure thee distro recommends on their websites. Customization is another rabbit hole I dreaded with stable releases. Rolling release does need a bit of my time before I upgrade to read through the release notes of the softwares I use but never had to reinstall just because an upgrade borked the system

[@vitacell1]

The advantage of rolling distro, is that you don't need to format and reinstall. You just keep updating. The update/upgrade of LTS distros, is pain in the ass, and it's always better to format and install new release, but it's too much time to lose.

[@SuperClau07]

Hello, thank you for your videos! I have a question for you, why do you use Kden live and not DaVinci Resolve? Cheers!

[@seguramlk]

I've been using Ubuntu MATE since 2016. Great distro. It's got its problems but for those who like using a dock instead of shortcuts, to my knowledge it has the best experience. Specially with Plank

[@folksurvival]

You can use Plank on any distro.

[@gregcampwriter]

I've been using Cinnamon Mint since the summer of 2021 for web browsing, word processing, book formatting, and graphic design. It's everything I liked about Windows 7 without any of the many frustrations that come with Microsoft products.

[@younus1975]

with flatpak, it does not really matter much which release you are on... so yeah your argument does make sense

[@andrew5604]

I understand your point of view, but I disagree. I found a compromise between stability and newer software, and this is DEBIAN TESTING that is a (awesome imho) rolling release distribution. Another reason to choose a rolling release is you have the POWER TO CHOOSE when to upgrade the whole system in just one command. That's it

[@spinningbacksidekick]

Started on Linux with Ubuntu 6.06, Dapper Drake with Gnome. Over the years I tried countless distros and environments, LTS, rolling, and in between. Years later, here I am with Ubuntu 22.04 with Gnome.

[@k.b.tidwell]

I like your perspective on this issue, and your video got my wheels turning. I watched it because I'm a couple weeks into searching for my ideal rolling release for all of my machines. My opinion is that a long term service distro is fine as you describe the scenario if you have a relatively fast multicore system. A rolling release makes more sense on low-spec systems because of the VM overhead. You simply have no processing power for a VM and a distro to run. I have several older laptops that fall into that camp. Why do I keep using low-spec tech, you ask? Because it works, and my primary usage doesn't need high horsepower. It's not the money. I can, and do, buy what I want. But I'm a lot of the old-school common-sense frugal that my grandparents (Depression-era survivors) were. My grandmother said so many times the old saying, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without", and it feels right to live that way. I tell this not to convert anyone to that lifestyle, but to remind everyone that there are many, many people who don't regularly use top-shelf hardware because they don't want it or don't need it or, sadly, can't afford it. I've been there too many times myself. So, that's what attracts me to a rolling release because I've used some distros that can be a sore inconvenience to upgrade to the next version. I know that there are ways to minimize the discomfort with storage drive structure planning, but many people don't understand the method there, and like I have been at different stages of life, don't have the time to put into the self-schooling to learn about it. There are also some releases that make it relatively care-free to upgrade in-place. MX Linux, which I'm running on this machine, comes to mind. I moved from version 19.X to 21.X in a few pretty simple steps, But I'm comfortable with the terminal too. Not everyone is. There are very recent Windows refugees who through bad luck or ignorance of Linux distros may have selected a distro that's not that simple to upgrade, and which almost immediately reaches upgrade time. It can be distressing when you're used to the honestly as simple as it gets rolling upgrade of Windows, and then you suddenly have to do a lot of research to upgrade your Linux system without losing the fifteen multi-gigabyte games you've set up, and maybe irreplaceable work data. I started out with Debian-based distros, so I've been there in my newbie days. No fun. At all. So, in the past few months I've gravitated toward Arch because it's sort of set it and forget it compared to Debian. My primary and most comfortable writing machines are 2 core, dogs by today's standards, so VM's are out of the question. Fortunately there are Linux choices for every scenario. The real task is just the finding of the best one! PS - had to edit to say that using Flatpaks in the LTS setup to achieve the latest versioning is also not ideal on older setups with limited storage.

[@timchesonis]

You are the most trusted Linux channel. Please don’t stop, we love your work!

[@arcticblue2]

I installed EndeavourOS on my Razer Blade a couple weeks ago. Last week, the touch pad suddenly stopped responding unless I hold down a "click". It will still register movement on the trackpad without a "click" behind held down sometimes, but it's completely random when it does and kind of rare. I've made no crazy customizations to the install or anything (installed a Gnome desktop, Dash To Panel, and things like Webex and Slack for work. Outside of that, only OS updates have been installed.) and the behavior is the same in Xorg and Wayland. I thought it may have been a hardware issue, but the trackpad works just fine in Ubuntu and Windows. Rolling releases are a gamble and I've had nothing but bad experiences with Arch-based distros past the first week or so of good first impressions. If you _really_ want a rolling release, Tumbleweed has been far more stable and reliable in my experience.

[@AyaWetts]

I ran into so many of the same issues of minor annoyances to major problems... I gave up on Arch. I stuck with Fedora and everything just keeps on working with no problems.

[@theplaymakerno1]

Luke Smith actually had a very good video on why LTS releases can be a problem. Arch, once you know how to maintain it, is probably the most stable distro you can have. Since everything is kept up to date, you also don't have to go into the whole rigmarole of actually finding which software version to install.

[@MyReviews_karkan]

I actually agree with you on this, but I do have two issues with flatpaks, theming and storage. You have to give them special permission for them to follow your theme. That is not enabled by default and not too many people know about it. Storage, they are freaking huge. I know some people will say "storage is cheap", it is true for those who can actually afford it. Some cannot afford that "cheap storage". Other than that, if you don't have new hardware, you don't really need a rolling release. I have been personally been migrating away from them on my personal machines. Just so tired of worrying about updates and breakage

[@TangBengYong]

Hi could you do a review of the Chinese version of Linux, Ubuntu Kylin? It looks like they are trying to copy the Windows 10 interface and may appeal to people coming from Windows. Wonder if it is a rolling release like WIndopws and if it has any security risks like telemetry or back doors.

[@MarkHobbes]

I'm actually using Manjaro for years and it has been the best option for me. I've tried to use Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros, but the LTS philosophy has brought many issues for applications forcing me to use flatpak for everything (almost ruining my entire SSD full of flatpaks). So, I decided to keep using the Manjaro/Arch even though it's not as "stable" as it can be using a fixed release distro. I prefer to eventually deal with tiny issues than have big issues by using a LTS-like distro which a philosophy anti-market, anti-innovation just for "stability" makes it automatically unstable for me to keep using it nonstop. I've had issues with Telegram just because Ubuntu version is too old (same happened to other applications, again forcing me to use flatpak). On Manjaro, I've almost everything in the repos so I don't even need to use flatpak nor the AUR. I've tried to use Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Pop OS, Linux Mint Cinnamon and I couldn't use them; due to the oldness of the distro, even though I could opt-in for using a non-LTS, but it is still problematic to update to newer versions and had issues with drivers, especially on Mint, when you install NVIDIA driver and then the kernel or version updates, it breaks everything. I've tried to update manually the kernel after installing the NVIDIA driver and then it went very bad.

[@hugbearsx4]

Noob here! One thing that kept me away from the LTS model was the fear of having to reinstall and reconfigure E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G when that particular release came to EOL of security updates. Maybe my fears were unfounded, maybe distributions have tools for seamless upgrade, and maybe you could elaborate on this subject in a future video.

[@penguin2137]

Linux Mint team have developed the upgrade tool for the major releases (e.g. 20.3 -> 21), and you could upgrade point releases from the Update Manager, so actually it's all good

[@hugbearsx4]

Thank you!

[@thomson3093]

Fedora also offers version upgrades, even through software center gui. I've found a spare drive that had an older version of fedora. It was 4 versions behind the recent state and I've upgraded through all versions without a single issue during the process and on the final result. I can absolutely recommend fedora. The often kernel updates in fedora can be disabled in dnf configuration (was annoying to me personally).

[@k.b.tidwell]

I had a pretty easy time versioning up with MX Linux, which is based directly on Debian. It's my current favorite because of its very nice collection of system tools, though I am looking for a nice rolling release because I just want to mess with the system as little as possible.

[@MannyGraal]

It's been hard to find a good distro for me. I mean FerenOS and Pop OS have been doing good for me, but the rest of Ubuntu based distros give me bad audio issues. One of them being that the audio stutters so much sometimes. Same goes for Fedora and their fedora based distros like Risi, Aquamarine, and Nobara also give me these audio stutters issues. Arch based distros have been good except for Manjaro which I also have issues with. Mainly when I'm trying to record my voice. any other arch based distro is fine. I've tried switching from PipeWire to PulseAudio, but that doesn't help. I did try to change some digits in a file that is for audio in the terminal, but that would make it worst no matter if I went with lower digits or higher. That's annoying because I like distro hopping a lot to try them out, but end up going back to arch most of the time. Everything in ubuntu based distros seems to be slow, like the bootups and loging in. That's what I've noticed.

[@ShaunakHub]

OpenSUSE is truly an underrated distro. Unfortunately, it is not for me. For some reason the only distro that can not display web pages properly in my native language (Bangla/ Bengali) is OpenSUSE - tried everything, still the web pages are messy.

[@rahilarious]

Gentoo is the way. You choose whether rolling or static, systemwide as well as per package bases.

[@k.b.tidwell]

Can you change that status at any time, or are you locked in at installation time?

[@rahilarious]

@@k.b.tidwell you're not locked in anyway. Systemd/openrc, glibc/musl, gcc/llvm, multilib (with x32 libs) or not it's all upto you. Gentoo = Full Liberty

[@k.b.tidwell]

@@rahilarious I see. Thank you. I'll have to give Gentoo another look.

[@matteomigliorini]

The beautiful of linux world you can choose your distro, the bad things is a lot of distro for choose... I use Linux for work (visual fx) and usually I needed a stable version for many years (and also should be more compatible with the software I used) so... in the last months I across the line from Ubuntu LTS to Alma Linux

[@timnowak8573]

Yeh I agree. Personally, I use Linux Mint, the system is very stable. The only thing missing is the just mentioned higher linux kernel version, newer mesa version etc. Other than that, I have no other problems. I use the application in the flatpack, and appimage versions most often. So I have no problems that I do not have the latest versions of the application. With Rolling systems for example Manjaro, I had a problem after upgrading. The whole system crashed after the update, I've never had this problem on Linux Mint.

[@Imreness]

Manjaro breaks a lot more often than base Arch for example. In the 1,5 years of daily driving Arch it only broke once and it was because of my own poking around and not the upgrade process itself. Any rolling release distro will be several times more stable than Manjaro.

[@timnowak8573]

@@Imreness Perhaps. Personally, I've only had issues with manjaro and garuda linux. These systems crashed after the update. I've never tried pure arch, and I've heard a lot of good things about ArcoLinux and Archman. However, I did not check these systems, more so I prefer to use systems based on ubuntu, debian or fedora. I know these systems and I know I can rely on them.

[@emjaycee]

Manjaro was stable for me but I used to use an LTS kernel, not use the AUR and always do TTY2 updates. I had a stable system for a good 2 years that way, a friend has had a stable system for over 3 years now using that process. But Manjaro isn't what it used to be, in my opinion anyway.

[@AyaWetts]

I ran Manjaro about 6-8 months. I only ever had 1 big noticeable problem after an update... it was pretty good overall. Arch had problems and boot issues on me multiple times in the 4-5 months I used it, it was a nightmare... I'm staying away from Arch based for now though, Fedora has been fantastic.

[@emjaycee]

@@AyaWetts Fedora is good. It's just the codecs/mesa issues that are potentially an issue now. Fedora plus all the RPM Fusion stuff always made it workable for me in the past... we'll see about the future :)

[@007Knightjp]

I think it comes to the point I made some time ago - When you have everything and the system just the way you want it, leave it alone.

[@timothyglidden6746]

You had a lot of Great points, me i use Garuda for all my gaming. but on my laptops i use OpenSuse Leap, and my test laptop i use open Indiana for the rock solid stable base, That being said as more and more "normal people" lol come to linux LTS will e the way forward as they are more or less the most stable and require less maintinance. just my 2 cents, keep up the great videos.

[@dromedda6810]

i've been gaming on linux now for about a year, and it isnt as fluid as it was on windows, but its damn near close, especially with wine, lutris and proton things are just easier to get running. ironically league of legends wont run on my windows install for what ever reason, but runs flawlessly on my arch install using lutris and wine

[@victorh2007]

I was having videos issues with Fedora. When I installed Ubuntu 22.10 the problem I had my problem no longer exists. Some latest driver update in Fedora was probably the cause of the problem I was facing.

[@linuxstreamer8910]

i love the aur so I'm running a rolling release distro also i mostly game on my pc

[@CyborgZeta]

I use Kubuntu 22.04 LTS with Flatpaks. It works.

[@leothegeek4432]

Fedora Gnome is stable and you get also the latest software. My only problem is the heavy memory consumption. Otherwise it's a perfect distro.

[@aleclowry7654]

Fedora + sway gang

[@lambdanil]

eh the release cycle is a bit too fast

[@leothegeek4432]

@@lambdanil Yes it is fast but I have zero problems with Gnome 43 in Fedora

[@AyaWetts]

@@lambdanil you can do just evens or just odds if you choose... upgrade yearly instead of every 6 months. Its really easy to upgrade though, just like a normal update, no big deal.

[@MarkHobbes]

Not as latest as Arch or Manjaro. The high memory consumption is due to Wayland usage by default and the fact the memory and swap (actually vram) is configured mostly for servers, not desktop usage. Fedora is a hassle to fully configure and make it usable. It makes it so hard for people to get full access to proprietary programs/apps, codecs, plugins, fonts, drivers. It's like pure Debian, openSUSE or Arch, you need to do DIY. I prefer something more ready-to-use and user-friendly by default. Fedora is just too "raw" and "barebones"

[@JEgkt]

From my experience, Fedora or Opensuse Tumbleweed are horrible on my laptops especially with Nvidia rtx 3050 no surprise there. The installation is great but number 1 issue for me is the battery life. I did install tlp with cpufreq tops at 3hours with my Asus tuf dash f517z. Right now im running Pop os and tlp with cpu freq, i get around 5hrs. The interesting part i was able to completely shutdown nvidia while using intel igpu mux switch. Also i was able to tame Firefox high cpu spike righ around 20mhz cpu usage. For now i'll stick with PopOs as they seem to understand proprietary drivers.

[@PhyleXTension82]

I've been using Fedora Workstation on my desktop for the last 12-18 months, and to be honest have quite enjoyed it. However recently a series of updates to the kernel have slowed down the booting of the system, which when combined with the different workflow of Gnome have led me to thinking about changing. My favourite distro that I have used is MX - love the stability, the semi rolling model it uses, and the fact that flatpak means you can get up to date programs on a stable base. I'm leaning towards heading back to it for the stability and workflow of xfce... I also have enjoyed using PopOS, and am quite intrigued as to the direction they're going - specifically I am looking forward to see how their DE will work overall when they switch to it.

[@AyaWetts]

Why would you stick with GNOME if you don't like it? Just add on whatever DE you want. I normally install the normal GNOME version, then add on KDE as well.

[@PhyleXTension82]

@@AyaWetts it's not that I don't like Gnome, I find I have trouble completely adjusting to it. I love its aesthetics and principles. I have added de's before, and whilst I can do this I prefer the out of the box experience..... I know, lazy huh? I quite like plasma, but have never had the stability of Gnome or XFCE, which is a bit of a detractor for me.

[@pirateking45]

Switched to Fedora Silverblue for last 1 year. Never been better. It's rolling and stable and the same time.

[@ransacked]

Flatpaks 🤮

[@lambdanil]

Silverblue isn't rolling, it's based on regular Fedora which has a release every 6 months

[@pirateking45]

@@lambdanil yes. With one command you can switch to rawhide. And vice versa. Which is far more smooth than any other distro

[@pirateking45]

@@ransacked not that bad. I prefer it than native gui apps.

[@AyaWetts]

@@lambdanil its not true rolling, but its very close. They do a lot of updates very regularly, sometimes every few days, which often include like the Kernel and mesa and much that can help a lot. Some people call it semi-rolling, but I doubt it has any real term to it.

[@orcaflotta7867]

Nobody really needs a rolling release. I'm just much too lazy to deal with point releases. I install once ... and just roll into the infinite future. Køöl. :)

[@thering0010]

For me, Manjaro is the correct balance of RR and stability. I haven't seen a major breakage on any of my systems in several years at this point. Their stable channel seems to do extremely well at mitigating instabilities. I run Qtile on top of Manjaro, so things are fairly hacked up, and I still don't have any problems on my work PC. One of the big reasons I choose to run Manjaro is access to the AUR along with the sandbox packages like Flatpaks. I use some very specific apps on a daily basis (like Veyon, for example) that aren't available as a Snap or a Flatpak, and that are only available for some LTS releases of Ubuntu, and only some older releases of Fedora.

[@nemogamma578]

Rolling or not rolling? is that a real arguments to choise a distribution? More important are for example the team behing, the support you can get, the documentation, the community, the real installation workflow… No distro is certified bug free. That’s marketing !

[@guilherme5094]

I don't hate Rolling Release distros, they just don't work for me. I use LTS always.

[@bleack8701]

Windows break too often for my taste so a rolling release has always sounded like a nightmare to me. Once I switch from 10 I'm definitely going to go with a stable release distro

[@penguin2137]

actually, Windows has a messy release system - it's neither rolling nor stable, i don't know if you can call it half-rolling as well

[@peppe540]

Exactly why I am switching more and more to Fedora Kinoite and MicroOS KDE (can use Gnome as well), which are basically locked down, very much up to date, easy rollback available and I run 98% of my applications through Flatpak. Only thing: it is so boringly stable ;-) So i still have Arch with Sway on another system for the tinkering ;-) Thanks for the vid!

[@AyaWetts]

I have noticed that. I have been using Fedora for a while now, and it... just works. Its been great, but gets kind of boring. When I was using a lot of other distros, most recently Arch, I was having to take care of the OS all the time and things would break and I would learn what was going on and fix etc... I've liked having Fedora, but in some ways miss all the fixing problems, or getting mad when my system won't boot after an update... lol. I guess I need to set up a play machine for tinkering like you have.

[@darknetworld]

It hard to do something but in era days. It was not easy but wanted to have clean and stable desktop. The ease of use either good and the bad. Everyone have choice no one is force but for windows it pain in ass.

[@arkvsi8142]

I use fedora BTW

[@ryanjohnson8500]

You know, I was literally going to make a video on this lol, and you beat me to it, but I agree the mass of adoption of universal packaging such as Snaps and Flatpak does makes the rolling release model less appealing to me, I personally use Manjaro but honestly I'm thinking of installing Ubuntu again.

[@TheBlackSkimmer]

I did this. I still have manjaro on my desktop only because I don't use it. My laptop, however, runs Pop_OS! and I see no need for a rolling release. Flatpak has really changed my views on needing vs wanting a rolling release.

[@watynecc3309]

don't recommand manjaro sadly...

[@emjaycee]

Definitely not these days anyway.

[@mikephillips5551]

30 years using linux. You get the same fails in a stable release like ubuntu or fedora as you do in rolling like arch !! I use arch because i like that it's not bloated with things you don't want it's what you install. pacman is faster then apt zypper dnf !!

[@mikey10006]

tbqh Linux mint + flatpak + kisak mesa PPA is more than I'll ever need

[@AhmedFaisal13]

My approach to Linux was always dual booting, and no, not dual booting with windo$e (although I do it) but rather using two distros. Previously I was using 1 rpm distro and 1 apt. But as I grow more knowledge about how things really going I started to Use 1 LTS and 1 rolling release (I started with Manjaro but Im preparing to move into Arch. Just searching for a way to enlarge terminal font to suite my accessibility needs).

[@VollkinSea]

Have you looked into bedrock Linux or distrobox to consolidate the two into one?

[@AhmedFaisal13]

@@VollkinSea never heard of such a thing, I'll surely check it.

[@VollkinSea]

@@AhmedFaisal13 they are really cool. Distrobox is the younger cousin, easy to install, but more limited. Bedrock Linux is older but much more in-depth. It literally turns your distro into a bedrock Linux meta-distro with your preferred distro as the main one. You can mix and match distros and even swap out your main distro entirely, and bedrock just makes sure it just works. To put it in one sentence, distrobox is like containers inside (and integrated) with your distro while bedrock Linux literally just make running and mixing and matching things from different distros your entire system

[@fabricio4794]

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed....acept no substitutes.

[@propjoe1060]

I use a rolling release because I like to have the latest kernel and graphics stack for gaming. No other reason than that really.

[@None17555]

I've twice had Manjaro break shortly after install... literally only did updates and a reboot, then ka-put! Rolling releases are oxymoronic. You setup an install with the idea that it'll update for a decade, so no need to clean install... then it breaks well before the next LTS release of the closest competitor. I settled on Mint and every time I distro hop I end up back there. I have Windows machines I use everyday for work and for gaming, so when I have a Linux machine that's significantly less stable and reliable... it's painful. Mint is consistently up to the task though.

[@ransacked]

That's your biggest you mistake using Manjaro.

[@raxelgrande]

Everything's nice in a rolling release, until the Gnome developers choose to bring us a bad release (43). The amount of serious bugs that got in (broken scrolling in nautilus, gtk3 apps don't appear in dock/alt-tab) made me roll back to Ubuntu 22.04

[@dipenxnp9509]

Linux Mint cinnamon ❤️❤️👍👍

[@k.b.tidwell]

Sometimes we polish the hammer and saw so much that the house never gets built.

[@W.A.-Linux]

You don't need rolling release only if you have an ancient pc or for browsing the web.

[@lukevideckis2260]

What's better: a slow, steady incline (rolling release), or a flat plateau heading towards a cliff (LTS)

[@lukevideckis2260]

Btw arch user here, I update every other day, no breakages within the past 6 months. Just keep AUR packages to a minimum

[@jozsefizsak]

I don't have coding skills. Starting with maybe Redhat 6, all the way up to Manjaro just a few years ago, it was always a very few weeks before an update made the system unbootable and I was back to the evil Windows once again. For me and ordinary folks in general, it's fixed releases all the way, even though I know that the issues I had were essentially trivial and were fixed in a few minutes by proper geeks. As you pointed out, in the late 90s, we, well, maybe not you specifically since you don't seem very old, looked forward to the benefits of every new release of everything but now, the improvements are generally niche and significant to only a minority. I'm definitely traumatized by those experiences but don't need bleeding edge anyway, so it doesn't matter.

[@npaladin2000]

The main advantage to rolling is never having to go through a major distro upgrade or migration. But they aren't stable. So for a work desktop I think immutable distros like Silverblue are the way to go. Especially if you're going to be working in a sandbox anyway.

[@not_amanullah]

Can arch be as stable as tumbleweed 😢

[@StarlordStavanger]

Fedora Fedora Fedora ❤❤❤

[@dedoyxp]

using rolling release just because you need it for newer hardware like new laptop

[@Sahil-cb6im]

im using ubuntu normal version

[@MrBlue-qe7yl]

what's normal version?

[@arkvsi8142]

U shouldn't

[@janiceadriana6830]

Opensuse Leap way to go

[@madsouris]

Stable? That’s for horse

[@ItsThicc]

Pop os is king

[@billeterk]

Then there’s something like NixOS or Guix which go for reproducible rather than immutable

[@jethrot100]

Ubuntu 22.10 just looks better than LTS

[@thischannelwillselfdestruc4977]

How on earth do we update arch from stable snapshots every few months? come on mate you can't tease something like that and then say no more

[@AyaWetts]

I recall in Arch there was a way to make pacman update (or downgrade) to a specific date/time of releases... I found it in the wiki one time when looking how to roll back before some updates. I don't recall what it was since I got mad at Arch problems all the time and left it.

[@thischannelwillselfdestruc4977]

@@AyaWetts Honestly I don't have problems. Was just very curious but then i realised if im waiting 6 months to update then its not going to be very secure. So I'll just do bi-weekly updates. Thank you

[@AyaWetts]

@@thischannelwillselfdestruc4977 You can do updates often... upgrades less often.

[@MasterPJ86]

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a rolling distro your daily drive. Debian with flatpaks (and eventually backports repo enabled) is the way to be productive with zero issue. Only for gaming I'd choose a semi rolling and well updated, maybe Nobara, or PopOS for a safer choice.

[@wyfyj]

Gentoo is /~

[@donaldc3884]

I would still be using linux for gaming if it wouldnt set my cpu on fire causing my wifi chip to burn out.

[@AyaWetts]

yeah... flaming CPUs are always bad for wifi...

[@donaldc3884]

@@AyaWetts its a laptop and i have monitored the temps while in operation. The laptop got so hot it "froze" several times. Wifi chip went out, no i cant confirm it was the heat, maybe it was the linux drivers? any suggestions smartass?

[@AyaWetts]

@@donaldc3884 not enough info to go off of. It could be a very badly made laptop. Most decent brands, and pretty much all modern CPUs and GPUs will slow down and lower power to keep their own heat down up to the point they emergency cut off if its too hot before damage occurs. There could be so many different issues going on there causing power or heat issues beyond the normal culprits, no way to diagnose in KZbin comments, but I just thought your comment sounded really funny.

[@donaldc3884]

@@AyaWetts your right, my initial comment was kind of senseless, im an asshole. Ty for the reply, good info.

[@FengLengshun]

Just use distrobox kekw. But really, that's why I'm keeping a close eye on Vanilla OS. I've been wanting a semi-immutable apt distro (since most of what I use/prefer are slanted towards apt) and Vanilla been hitting all of the sweet spots I want. It's still pretty WIP but good progress is being made. Before this, I settled with Manjaro and I've been looking for a replacement because Manjaro team be whack, and Vanilla might be the "why don't we have both?" option with its deep distrobox integration and apt access fallback via abroot shell. As distrobox improves (GUI password prompt has been a long time showstopper for me) and Vanilla matures, it'll make sense for my PC where I want to forget about updates and just game/work/read/watch things.

[@emjaycee]

Manjaro has gone off hasn't it. They even hide the grub menu these days... yet they still give you the kernel management tool... which is useless unless you know how to 'unhide' grub :)

[@FengLengshun]

@@emjaycee Does it? I don't think they still hide it by default since I've used the btrfs snapshot a few times. Either I might have changed it or it shows it by default if you choose btrfs install (which includes timeshift-autosnap by default).

[@emjaycee]

@@FengLengshun The latest ISOs released that I tried (KDE, Xfce, Cinnamon, Budgie, Mate) hid grub. But I always use their standard ext4 option, I'll try one of them again as a btrfs install and see if that makes a difference and let you know.

[@emjaycee]

@@FengLengshun I just installed their latest Xfce ISO again this time using btrfs in lieu of ext4. Still no grub menu available. I even did an update and there was no option to check back to the original as installed. So no, no grub either way, which means you need to know how to 'unhide' grub with new installs to get different kernels or even revert to a saved backup. Like I said elsewhere, old installs probably work just fine, the new ones are definitely problematic. No doubt their devs will be 'told' at some point :) Whether they listen may be another matter of course :)

[@FengLengshun]

@@emjaycee Damn. I thought it shows grub by default since I'm convinced that's how I found out about their btrfs snapshot. That is so dumb - what is even the point of having btrfs snapshot if it isn't exposed to the user then? Garuda at least exposes it, even if I prefer shorter timeout than Garuda's default. Weird decisions like this, their Gnome Firefox theme, and removing codecs from Mesa that made me want to get off of Manjaro. While rn they are the perfect distro for me (I wanted a distro with access to AUR, not as bleeding edge as Arch had been last year, and has btrfs snapshot), I can't trust them to not mess something up and affecting me.

[@valve_girl]

KZbin sucks!!

[@RHTORAS]

Its a shame you only show us shitty distributions because you avoid these without systemD. Ok i see the paet you lack this knowledge although i like you as a person. Have tou tried semi rolling models? I.e devuan daedalus? Stable rolling distros like pclinuxos or even better void? Even antix is good. Why avoid all these ? Have you ever heard of obarun or artix ? These used to be better than arch in all aspects. So is metis Linux. Btw void has been more stable than manjaro and also within more software available excluding aur( you can use nixpkgs or xbps-src and have them).

[@JTCPingas]

r/ihadastroke

[@tomasglavina4166]

LTS all the way, the more stable the better, without compromising the performance. Ubuntu is great for that, Debian is way too extreme.

[@ItsThicc]

Tumbleweed is trash

[@sirrobertdowneysenior8080]

Seriously no intent to offend you IG but you're aging badly.

[@45678213914284289421]

If you aren't programmer don't give advice to devs because probably it will be silly at best. Flatpak, snaps and appimages aren't "sandboxes for development".